N.Y.P.D. (TV series)

N.Y.P.D. is a half-hour long American police crime drama set in the context of the New York City Police Department. The program aired on the ABC network from 1967–1969 in the 9:30 p.m. night time slot. During the second season, N.Y.P.D was joined by The Mod Squad and It Takes a Thief to form a 2½ hour block of crime dramas.

N.Y.P.D.
The cast from left: Frank Converse, Jack Warden and Robert Hooks, 1969.
Genre	Police crime drama
Created by	Arnold Perl David Susskind
Written by	Lonne Elder III Arnold Perl Albert Ruben David Susskind
Directed by	Robert Butler Alex March Daniel Petrie David Pressman
Starring	Jack Warden Robert Hooks Frank Converse
Theme music composer	Charles Gross
Composer	Charles Gross
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	49
Production
Executive producer	Daniel Melnick
Producer	Bob Markell
Editor	Lyman Hallowell
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Talent Associates, in association with the ABC Television Network
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	September 5, 1967 – March 25, 1969

N.Y.P.D. centers around three New York police detectives – Lieutenant Mike Haines (Jack Warden), Detective Jeff Ward (Robert Hooks), and Detective Johnny Corso (Frank Converse) – who fight a wide range of crimes and criminals. The show features many real New York City locations, as well as episodes based on actual New York City police cases.

• Jack Warden as Lt. Mike Haines
• Robert Hooks as Det. Jeff Ward
• Frank Converse as Det. Johnny Corso
• Ted Beniades as Det. Richie
• Denise Nicholas as Ethel
• Tom Rosqui as Det. Jacobs

The show was produced by Talent Associates, Ltd., a company founded by Alfred Levy and David Susskind. Talent Associates had produced 14 years of the anthology program Armstrong Circle Theatre and The Kaiser Aluminum Hour. David Susskind created N.Y.P.D. with screenwriter Arnold Perl (Cotton Comes to Harlem). Daniel Melnick, executive producer of N.Y.P.D., was a partner with Susskind in Talent Associates and had brought Mel Brooks and Buck Henry together to create the television comedy Get Smart in 1965. Producer Susskind and actor Harvey Keitel would work together again on Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). One of the writers on the series was Lonne Elder, who would later become the first African-American nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar (for the 1972 movie Sounder).

Among the guest stars who appeared in the series were:

• Al Pacino S2E5 "Deadly Circle of Violence"
• Martin Sheen S2E8 "The Peep Freak"
• Jon Voight S1E14 "The Bombers"
• Harvey Keitel S2E6 "The Shady Lady"
• Jane Alexander S2E14 "The Night Watch"
• Roy Scheider S2E19 "Who's Got the Bundle?"
• Sam Waterston S2E23 "No Day Trippers Need Apply"
• Charles Grodin S1E6 "Money Man"
• Howard Da Silva S1E7 "Old Gangsters Never Die"
• Murray Hamilton S1E24 "The Private Eye Puzzle"
• Charles Durning S2E1 "Naked in the Streets"

Robert Alda, Rutanya Alda, Conrad Bain, Philip Bosco, John Cazale, Leslie Charleson, Miriam Colon, Franklin Cover, Matthew Cowles, Blythe Danner, Ossie Davis, Mary Fickett, Scott Glenn, Moses Gunn, Graham Jarvis, James Earl Jones, Raul Julia, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Laurence Luckinbill, Nancy Marchand, Bill Macy, Donna McKechnie, Meg Myles, Priscilla Pointer, Andrew Robinson, Esther Rolle, Richard Ward, Louis Zorich, Jill Clayburgh, Jane Elliot, Ralph Waite, Gretchen Corbett

In 1967, N.Y.P.D. was the first television series in America to air an episode with a self-identified gay character ("Shakedown").^[1] The plot of the episode centers around the police tracking down a blackmailer who has triggered several suicides by their targeting of gay men.

N.Y.P.D. scripts featured both black and white people as cops, suspects, and witnesses, an unselfconscious racial blend that would not otherwise be seen for several years on U.S. network television (Room 222 and Hawaii Five-O were among the next series to feature casts situated similarly.)

The series' opening credit sequence, prominently featuring a closeup of a police car emergency light as the vehicle drives through the streets of New York, would later be spoofed in the 1980s comedy series Police Squad! and subsequent movies.

• N.Y.P.D. at IMDb
• The Robert J. Markell papers, 1967–1968 are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, MA.